N. Korea missile aimed at area off Hawaii - report

[cal04]

A North Korean missile launched on Wednesday was aimed at an area of the ocean close to Hawaii, a Japanese newspaper reported on Friday.

Experts estimated the Taepodong-2 ballistic missile to have a range of up to 6,000 km, putting Alaska within its reach. Wednesday's launch apparently failed shortly after take-off and the missile landed in the sea between the Korean peninsula and Japan, a few hundred kilometres from the launch pad.

But data from U.S. and Japanese Aegis radar-equipped destroyers and surveillance aircraft on the missile's angle of take-off and altitude indicated that it was heading for waters near Hawaii, the Sankei Shimbun reported, citing multiple sources in the United States and Japan.

North Korea may have targeted Hawaii to show the United States that it was capable of landing a missile there, or because it is home to the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific fleet, the paper said.

http://asia.news.yahoo.com/060707/3/2mty8.html

[HuffleClaw]

1. bwahhhhahahhaaaaaa

nice propaganda.

[Freedom_from_Chains]

4. Who knows?

There is so much disinformation floating around on this one it is impossible to tell where this is at or where it is going.

However, my personal take is it's not good. Too reminiscent of the Cuban missile crises.

[HuffleClaw]

13. 'the cuban missile crisis' ????

a completely overblown 'crisis' manufactured by bushco. and the corporate media is, imo, not remotely like the cuban missile crisis. the sad thing is that this fear-mongering only played into north korea's hands. the better thing to do would have been to ignore it.

[puffthemagicdragon]

12. I guess I don't think it is funny

if he really did aim at Hawaii - and there is a good chance he did - that is scary. my sister lives there and that seems to be an act of war in my opinion

[struggle4progress]

15. Extremely unlikely that NK aimed a missile at anybody's territory:

NK and SK have been working successfully towards free exchange and economic cooperation -- and this has recently included US personnel visiting NK -- which has nothing to gain from a crisis.

BTW: the "missile crisis" of the last few weeks coincided with a major sale of US missile technology to Japan, and the "crisis" undoubtedly helped create political cover in Japan for the buy ...

[pinniped]

20. Last year the propaganda said it could hit the west coast.

I live right on the coast, I'll be waiting for it.

The US likely has nukes targeted at every country on the planet.

Is that OK or an act of war?

[ngant17]

22. no way anyone can prove it, unless you belive the lies

Herr Shrubbery is a pathological liar, and as this commander-in-cheif controls what the military can and can not say, it is reasonable to assume that this is psy-ops at best, brazen lies to the US public at its worst.

In all his omniscient wisdom, he just 'knows' (from God?) the exact telemetry of the missles and where they are going before the North Koreas even hardwire the telemetry in their own missles.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

34. An area off the coast of Hawaii =

I think it is funny. I think the people scared by it are pretty funny too.

[Megahurtz]

33. But why would a Tokyo newspaper publish the propoganda?

:shrug: Doesn't make sense to me.

Not every country is as fucked-up as ours!

[Irreverend IX]

37. They may want to stir up fear of NK among Americans...

because they want the US to step in and take out Kim Jong Il.

[Endangered Specie]

2. So I guess W will be comparing himself to FDR again?

[Deja Q]

3. When will the anti-gay people chime in on this?

[global1]

5. Hmmm - Didn't * Just Create The World's Largest Protected Marine Sanctuary

off Hawaii? Could it be that * was providing Kim Jong Il with a target? Or is this what PNAC meant by the 'new Pearl Harbor'?

[anotherdrew]

10. my first thought as well, now we know why n/t

[KamaAina]

29. 9/11 is what PNAC meant by the "new Pearl Harbor"

the infamous report "Rebuilding America's Defenses" was published in Sept. 2000.

[Pavulon]

6. IF this is true that is an act

that would have triggered a nuclear launch in 1970. Firing ballistic missiles at other nations is not acceptable, negotiations, bush or not.

Kim is playing with the lives of millions in his country. If it had reached its apogee and started to drop onto hawaii what do you think the ballistic missile fleet would be ordered to do?

The us could have assumed it was armed and fired back.

[Selatius]

19. We have good radar detection

We would ascertain rather quickly if it was going to hit Hawaiian landmass or ocean water. We probably would've concluded rather quickly after the missile begins its descent where it would crash. We've got far better tracking technology than what we had in 1970.

[Pavulon]

31. Given

delta V, x,y,z (fuel cap helps) and time the target of a ballistic missile is quite simple to detect. Even in 1970.

[Eugene]

7. That would be suicidal. Even Kim is not that crazy.

North Korea also tested a Rodong medium range missile capable of reaching Japan.
The missile worked from all appearances, but North Korea fired it into the sea
away from Japan.

Reports say that the TD-2 is not very accurate. A missile aimed near Hawaii
wouldn't have to miss by much to come down inside U.S. territory. It would
be an outright act of war. The U.S. would be justified in shooting back.
Kim Jong Il practices brinksmanship, not suicide.

[bbinacan]

8. I think he is that crazy. n/t

[goforit]

18. Agreed, two peas in a pod.

Bush & Kim, such a lovely couple.

[Purveyor]

9. Let's see. We are told this missile was only operational for

42 seconds but yet we now can determine its "destination"?

Bullshit!

NeoCon Rose is working overtime, it seems.

[BrotherBuzz]

11. Willie Mays could do that caculation in a blink of an eye

The rest of us need a computer to determine the trajectory. Piece of cake for the whiz kids.

[RoyGBiv]

16. This isn't a baseball ...

Willie Mays could do that calculation because the "boost" phase of a baseball ends immediately after leaving the surface area of the bat. He's mentally calculating a ballistic tragejectory and can do so because the baseball is ballistic from the moment it leaves the bat.

The boost phase of an ICBM ends when the booster rockets stop firing, which is anywhere between 3 and 5 minutes after launch. That's when it becomes ballistic. This missile failed after 42 seconds. It had not reached full velocity, and unless we have some direct information about the booster and how long it was set to fire and at what energies, the "authorities" making this determination are doing a lot of guessing. That's not to say that one couldn't make some educated guesses based on certain probabilities, but "somewhere off the coast of Hawaii" is a bit much for this particular missile.

In a very simplistic nutshell, this is one of the problems the anti-ballistic missile defense systems have. Calculating the trajectory of a missile of this variety is not a piece of cake. If it were, these missile defense systems would make more sense because they would know where to aim 15 minutes to half an hour before the missile got close to its target.

[CornField]

14. Wow... and here we sit with all our resources tied up

in Iraq and building a wall between us and Mexico.

[pinniped]

17. I'll be scared when they release parachute bombs that travel on the....

jetstream and can reach the west coast.:scared:

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

21. "Close to" Hawaii?

Even if this 6000Km figure is accurate (which I doubt) then the absolute closest this thing could come to the westernmost island of Hawaii is about 700 miles. And since the North Koreans have no fucking idea how to build reentry vehicles, I doubt it would ever get anywhere near that close.

[humbled_opinion]

24. It Only Needs To Be

Close to be effective. 20 Megaton blast has a pretty large destruct area. Not 700 miles, however, my point is he doesn't have to have sophisticated GPS targeting capability i.e. tomahawks he just needs to be able to lob it in a direction and get close.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

26. He also doesn't have any 20 megaton weapons.

The only US soil he could theoretically hit with one of these - at its maximum spec - would be somewhere in the Aleutians.

[ThoughtCriminal]

28. Payload capacity - Taepodong-2 can't carry their nukes

700 miles is too far even with a 20 Megaton warhead, but even if they had one that large, the missile only has a 500 kg payload capacity. This is an order of magnitude lighter than the likely weight of any North Korean nuclear device.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taepodong-2

The maximum achievable ratio of a fusion bomb is about 5.2 MT/t, so even if loaded with a thermonuclear weapon, the max for a Taepodong-2 would be 2-3 MT. But this is a much more advanced weapon than they are capable of building.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon_yield

[sinkingfeeling]

23. Sure. What nonsense!

[plasticsundance]

25. The Republican Congress needs propaganda like this

Then they can cite it as a source when standing up to speak in the House and attempt to convince the American public why they're spending money on an anti-ballistic defense system, instead of on education and other more pressing public/community needs.

[Spinoza]

27. Many posters here seem

utterly convinced that North Korea did NOT target the waters off Hawaii in their recent missile launch. You may all be right. I don't know. Still, I am glad noone in my family lives in Hawaii.

[w4rma]

35. I think that whackjob in North Korea needs to be taken more seriously.(nt)

[daleo]

30. A missile would have to overfly Japan to hit Hawaii from NK

If so, they probably destroyed it on purpose.

The Russians said it went north, towards Russian waters.

Who to believe?

[Megahurtz]

32. Hell, maybe he did!!!

:shrug: I don't trust the guy!

[Throd]

36. Kim should ask Japan what happens when you bomb Hawaii.